This Is Just Too Absurd To Keep To Myself

[debka_notion]

I received the following from a Jewish dating site's email list  (I used said site for a little while, a couple years ago, and never quite managed to get off their email list).   I found it absurd on a series of levels, and thought it was too hilarious (at least as something speaking to me) not to share.  First off, I find the notion of paying someone to pray for you to be a little off-kilter.  Secondly, What makes the 8th day of Chanukah so special?  They come up with a reason, and attribute it to someone, or rather, to his book, but it's the first I've ever heard of it.  I don't think that I'm that poorly educated.  Thirdly, I think that right now, I can support Talmud Torah in Jerusalem by doing an extra chazara on my gemara for class just as easily as sending these folks money.  Fourth, it just rubs me wrong, somehow.

Comments

[hatam-soferet.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a thought train along these lines:

* We need to find part-time work for our kollel bums now that funding from abroad is drying up.

* But they have no skills to offer

* What can we market as a skill? All they do is sit around "learning gemara" and davening

* Ah, let's try marketing their davening.

[flintknappy.livejournal.com]

That does sound like a plausable thought line. I have heard this before from some Jewish organizations, I don't recall offhand which ones. Usually it comes in the mail around the high holiday season and encourages you to have folks pray on your behalf before it's too late. Risky though it may be, I generally prefer to take my chances relying on my own prayers.

[sen-ichi-rei.livejournal.com]

That's pretty bad, but at least it's not also including guarantees that their prayers will work, with testimonies from people who have sent them money in the past (or fake testimonies).

What are the odds that they made up the Nesivos Sholom?

[shirei-shibolim.livejournal.com]

So now the end of Hanukka is the final ne'ila? I thought that was Hoshana Rabba. I wonder how long it'll take before we have until shemini shel pesah.

[sen-ichi-rei.livejournal.com]

It's like the opposite of the Christmas season, which keeps on coming earlier and earlier!

[shirei-shibolim.livejournal.com]

By the year 2050, tinsel and mechila will have become so omnipresent we won't even think about them.

[belu.livejournal.com]

I've definitely heard that God will make you rich/healthy/happy/whatever; all you need to do, besides worship him in the favored fashion, is to make financial donations towards his work, care of such-and-such church. I'm pretty sure God's work here only involves making his favorite pastor rich. (You doubt that he's God's favorite? Why else would he be rich?)

[margavriel.livejournal.com]

The idea that the last day of Chanukko is the "Final Sealing" is chasidic. I read about it in the "Artscroll Chanukah Book" when I was a kid. According to the נטעי גבריאל (a chasidic book of minhogim), chasidim wish each other גמר חתימה טובה on that day.

Paying for people to pray for you -- I don't know how old it is, but it's very common in Israel today. I guess it goes back to the chasidic idea of "Pidyen Gelt" -- pay the rebbe to pray for you, so that you will be saved (redeemed, hence פדיון) from some disaster.

[jonahrank.livejournal.com]

I got that message too...

Nonetheless, I didn't take up the offer...